Pentagon: War in Iraq Has Not Yet Reached Its Zenith

"I cannot say we have reached its zenith," he told a Monday briefing in Washington. "There is difficult and dangerous work ahead," he added.

Rumsfeld said once again that the Iraqi leadership was losing control over the happenings. "The circle is drawing closer," he stressed. According to him, Saddam Hussein is either killed or wounded or hiding.

The head of the Pentagon refused to confirm the discovery of substances in Iraq that could be used to produce chemical weapons, saying he was apprehensive about such statements and preferred to wait for more definitive reports.

Touching on Iraq's future, the defence secretary stressed that government decisions would be left to the Iraqi people. "The USA is not going to establish a government in Iraq," he said. "That would be something like the situation in Afghanistan."

Not that long ago, American soldiers would train their skills to counter insurgent and partisan military organizations. These days, they are trained to show resistance to the regular army of a potential adversary